Mayo’s Horan no stranger to mind games
Cast your mind back to last year’s All-Ireland quarter-finals and the pre-match war of words between Mayo and Donegal.
The then All-Ireland champions were, in fairness, the instigators. When now former selector Rory Gallagher spoke of collusion between Mayo and Monaghan he took the biscuit.
Jim McGuinness was less incendiary but he created a brouhaha when he spoke about the fear for his players’ safety as much as he mentioned a number of concussions suffered by them. Live by the sword, die by the sword was the refrain that came back at him.
McGuinness made the comments after beating Laois in a Saturday qualifier, but they were only aired on The Sunday Game the following evening. At the same time, unaware of McGuinness’s comments or Gallagher’s, which appeared closer to the game, Horan was speaking to the media about Donegal’s physical strength.
Horan said: “Donegal and their backroom team, they’re competitive, they’re All-Ireland champions. Anything that’ll give them an advantage, they’ll try. Last year they mastered many new skills and brought football to a different level on many fronts… particularly in the area around physicality. They really ratcheted that up last year and put a lot of teams to the sword based on their strength, power and tackling.
“I don’t know if any of ye have been at the end of a Michael Murphy tackle recently, but there’s serious, serious physicality in that team. So they’ve been the leaders on that front.”
Might McGuinness have referred to the comment had Donegal beaten Mayo? You can bet your bottom dollar, he would have. Horan was clearly attempting to crystallise the perception Donegal were all about power.
Might Horan have declined to mention Brian Cuthbert and Ronan McCarthy’s remarks had Cork beaten Mayo? Likely so. As Jim Gavin said after last year’s All-Ireland final, he wouldn’t have brought up the issue of refereeing decisions going against Dublin had Mayo won.
Horan on Sunday was in a perfect position to defend two of his players whose characters he felt had been sullied by McCarthy. Only he himself had singled out Murphy 12 months earlier. Not nearly as pointed as McCarthy’s “little fouls” comments. Nevertheless, his words had a purpose, bringing attention to the combative style of Murphy, Donegal’s leader.
Horan is no stranger to pre-match psychological battles, intimating referee Joe McQuillan had a cosy relationship with Dublin prior to their 2012 All-Ireland quarter-final.
Backing Cillian O’Connor and Kevin McLoughlin might be likened to when McGuinness went to bat for Ryan Bradley against Pat Spillane three years ago. However, Horan, being so au fait in such warfare, might also have appreciated it’s not an exact science. He was correct to raise, as he did without prompting, the issue but was over-indulgent in his criticism of the Cork management. For one, Cuthbert and McCarthy know they can face the Cork public with a lot of pride restored after losing the Munster final so badly.
Making things personal, as McCarthy did, was ill-advised, but what Cork partook in is by now a longstanding trick. In a sense, it was ironic that the Donegal management went out to exert pressure on the referee last year when in 2011 they took great exception to Kildare selector Niall Carew’s claims in newspapers on the day of their epic All-Ireland quarter-final that Donegal were guilty of “professional fouls”.
Like a siege mentality, such measures more often than not fail to pay off and smack of desperation on the part of those who resort to them. Yet last week saw an avalanche of attempts to sway referees about the ill-gotten gains of opponents. As well as Cork, both Armagh and Kildare were at it.
In his annual report earlier this year, GAA director general Páraic Duffy called for more realistic punishments to be handed out to team officials who question the integrity of players after games. Instead of “too severe” eight-week bans, he proposed the withdrawal of sideline privileges for a number of games.
That would appear an appropriate measure just as it is proper now to issue similar bans to managers and selectors who make any reference to the referee in question or attempt to put pressure on him prior to matches.
Last week’s glut of gamesmanship may have been exceptional but it had been coming. Horan chose not to dabble on this occasion but he has done before and might do so again.
In that sense, he’s not all that different from the Cork management he lambasted. He said they hit “a new low” but Horan was one of those managers who had set the previous record.
* Email: john.fogarty@examiner.ie
“Don’t mention the hype” seems to be the buzz phrase in Limerick with TJ Ryan and his management team keen to ensure the high expectation levels that preceded last year’s All-Ireland semi-final don’t swallow them up again ahead of Sunday’s All-Ireland semi-final.
No player turned up at last week’s pre-match press conference, which might be understandable if only for several reasons that will ensure the excess of the 2013 build-up won’t be repeated.
Firstly, there’s the fact they are not Munster champions. They have been beaten. Secondly, the county only has two weeks to get giddy. Last year, they had five.
Thirdly, the presence of Dublin’s footballers in Croke Park next Saturday will ensure the number of column inches devoted to them in the national press won’t be as large.
Fourthly, the minors playing the following weekend, when they were the undercard to the Clare game last year, will take a little away from the occasion.
Finally, they’re facing Kilkenny. As good as this Limerick team is, if that isn’t enough to keep the hype in check what is?
Football Review Committee chairman Eugene McGee didn’t envisage the current scenario when he predicted the black card would be seen less and less as the season progressed.
It’s not that such cynical behaviour is being cut out; referees are still missing blatantly obvious offences that are punishable by automatic substitution. Just three were seen over the four games in Croke Park at the weekend but Lee Keegan and Kevin McLoughlin were among those fortunate to remain on the field.
That’s not to mention the amount of interference in the four games that bordered on body-checking, which constitutes a black card offence.
With big appointments ahead and the quarter-final referees best placed in the running for the top job in September, perhaps there is a sense whistleblowers don’t want to rock the boat too much.
Things, it certainly appears, have become lax just as they are on the sidelines where management officials are again gathering despite regulations introduced last year to curb numbers congregating there.
